MRK vs. ABBV, JNJ, PFE, BMY, ZTS, LLY, NVS, ABT, AZN, and SNY
Should you be buying Merck & Co., Inc. stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Merck & Co., Inc. include AbbVie (ABBV), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Pfizer (PFE), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), Zoetis (ZTS), Eli Lilly and Company (LLY), Novartis (NVS), Abbott Laboratories (ABT), AstraZeneca (AZN), and Sanofi (SNY). These companies are all part of the "pharmaceutical preparations" industry.
Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) and AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, profitability, valuation, community ranking, risk, earnings and media sentiment.
Merck & Co., Inc. has a beta of 0.37, indicating that its stock price is 63% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, AbbVie has a beta of 0.58, indicating that its stock price is 42% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Merck & Co., Inc. pays an annual dividend of $3.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. AbbVie pays an annual dividend of $6.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.5%. Merck & Co., Inc. pays out 2,200.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. AbbVie pays out 227.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. AbbVie is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
AbbVie has a net margin of 8.95% compared to Merck & Co., Inc.'s net margin of 0.61%. AbbVie's return on equity of 162.28% beat Merck & Co., Inc.'s return on equity.
AbbVie has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Merck & Co., Inc.. AbbVie is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Merck & Co., Inc., indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
AbbVie received 336 more outperform votes than Merck & Co., Inc. when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 73.03% of users gave AbbVie an outperform vote while only 66.88% of users gave Merck & Co., Inc. an outperform vote.
Merck & Co., Inc. presently has a consensus target price of $129.14, suggesting a potential upside of 6.34%. AbbVie has a consensus target price of $175.36, suggesting a potential downside of 1.78%. Given Merck & Co., Inc.'s higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Merck & Co., Inc. is more favorable than AbbVie.
74.6% of Merck & Co., Inc. shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 67.9% of AbbVie shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of Merck & Co., Inc. shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of AbbVie shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
In the previous week, Merck & Co., Inc. had 2 more articles in the media than AbbVie. MarketBeat recorded 24 mentions for Merck & Co., Inc. and 22 mentions for AbbVie. AbbVie's average media sentiment score of 0.76 beat Merck & Co., Inc.'s score of 0.44 indicating that AbbVie is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Summary
AbbVie beats Merck & Co., Inc. on 14 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding MRK and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Skip ChartThis chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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